


Thread of Scarlet

by shir_hashirim



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Blood, Facials, Hallucinations, Hand Jobs, Hell, Hurt Sam Winchester, Intercrural Sex, Knives, M/M, Mild Painplay, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam's hand scar, Season/Series 07, Sibling Incest, Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shir_hashirim/pseuds/shir_hashirim
Summary: Lucifer’s been bothering Sam even more often than usual lately.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 96





	Thread of Scarlet

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place sometime after 7x02, while Lucifer is still in Sam's head and his hand scar has healed up for the most part.

Lucifer’s been bothering Sam even more often than usual lately. It’s hard for him to get some sleep, to get through a case smoothly, to even just have one day with his head leaving him alone.

He could handle it for a while, just treated the situation like Lucifer was just some rock stuck in his shoe. Annoying, but manageable. Lately, however, it felt more akin to a shard of glass in his foot.

They’re out working a job in Montana, and after they make a stop at the morgue to look at the latest victim, Dean pulls him aside. He not-so-nicely informs Sam that he looks like shit, that he needs to go take a nap at their motel while he goes off to check out their next lead. Sam, for once, doesn’t complain much. He just accepts the keys that Dean is holding out for him and nods tiredly.

Even on his short drive to the motel, Lucifer’s there riding shotgun with him. Singing rock songs off key at the top of his lungs. Sam’s head hurts like a bitch, and he wonders how many Advils he’d have to take to make the devil shut the fuck up. Probably enough to kill him.

He gets to the motel and collapses on the bed, exhausted. He wishes he could actually take a nap like Dean wants him to, but he knows he won’t be able to fall asleep. That’s when Lucifer gets the worst. 

No, Sam just needs to make Lucifer _go away_. Even if just for a little bit.

He thumbs the faded scar on the palm of his hand, pressing into it as hard as he can. Nothing. His one anchor to keep Lucifer at bay was almost gone, and wasn’t that just a great sign for what’s in store for him.

Frustrated, he digs his nail into his palm, leaving behind a red, half-moon mark. It hurts for a second, but not nearly enough to _really_ distract him.

He eyes the fresh bottle of whiskey on the table, the one that Dean had just bought that morning. Well, if this is how Dean self-medicates all the time, what’s the harm in Sam trying it for once?

He doesn’t have a cup, and Dean’s got his flask with him, so he settles for just taking swigs right from the bottle. He’s sure he must look like a mess right now, day drinking at— he checks his watch— 11:24am. Great. It’s not even noon yet.

Lucifer’s got some choice words about Sam’s drinking habits as well, but Sam tries his best to tune him out. He sits back on his bed and turns on the TV, settling on some mindless rerun of an old sitcom.

“Think you can ignore me, huh Sammy?” Lucifer says, perched up on Dean’s bed next to him. “Think if you just drink all day you can get rid of me like that?”

Sam ignores him, takes another long drink from the bottle. It burns going down, but even that is a nice sensation, giving him something else he can focus on.

“You do know that it’s never gonna work, right? I’m too far in your head. I know _everything_ about you. Know that you’re a sick freak as much as you try to pretend otherwise.”

Sam crosses his legs on the bed, keeps drinking.

“You know there’s something wrong with you. More than just this business going on with me right now. No, there’s so much more than that. Little Sammy, you’ve sure got some messed up fantasies, don’t you? You can pretend like I’m not here all you want, but that won’t change the fact that you’re stuck here with your own thoughts.”

Lucifer gets up off Dean’s bed and moves to sit on the bedside table. He rests his hand on his cheek and looks at Sam tauntingly.

“I know one way to escape from that noggin. You could just kill yourself, you know? Not like you really deserve to be alive anyways. At this point, you should have died a long time ago. We both know the world would be better off. So would Dean. He could go back to having a normal life, just like he did before you came back and screwed it up for him.”

Sam keeps his eyes fixed on the TV, lifts the bottle up and chugs. He shudders as he drinks— this really isn’t the kind of alcohol that’s fun to drink so quickly. But, he supposes, he’s not really trying to have fun right now.

Lucifer’s silent for a few minutes, causing Sam to finally look over at him. His own vision is starting to get blurry. Lucifer’s still there, but he feels further away, less defined. Maybe the alcohol is actually working.

Lucifer speaks again, but it’s easier this time for Sam to just ignore it, let his words go through one ear and out the other. He relaxes a little, and settles back in to keep watching TV. Without him realizing it, Sam’s eyes grow heavy and he falls asleep, his body finally giving in to its exhaustion.

Unfortunately, it’s here that Sam realizes that being drunk actually makes Hell _worse._

He wakes up in a haze, still seeing hellfire all around him. His whole body aches, he feels hot and cold at the same time, nausea churning in his stomach. Lucifer is in the room with him, somewhere. Sam can’t see clearly, can hardly think. Lucifer’s laughs ring inside his head, and he closes his eyes in pain. He digs his thumb back into his palm for some relief, but of course, it doesn’t do anything.

In his still partly-drunk, delirious state, Sam has an idea.

He roots around in his pockets, pulling out a switchblade. Before he can think about it too much, he presses the knife into his palm, reopening his old wound.

He just meant to nick it a little bit, just enough to draw up some blood, give him back his anchor to reality, but his concentration isn’t exactly at its best right now. He applies just a little too much force to the blade, and his old wound splits back open. Blood pools into his hand, spills down his wrist and through the webbing of his fingers and drips onto the bedsheet.

Sam watches, mesmerised. He concentrates on the blood, on the sharp, stinging sensation coming from his palm. 

It’s so, so red. Like the inside of the cherry pies that Dean loves so much.

Outside, he can hear the Impala pull up to the motel. Sam looks up dizzily when Dean enters their room. He’s got grocery bags in either hand, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth that quickly fades once he gets a look at Sam.

“Jesus, Sammy. What the hell happened?” Dean asks, urgently. He drops the bags on the table and makes his way over to Sam.

Sam’s ears are ringing, and he struggles to get any words out.

“Lucifer— he won’t leave me alone. I just want to make him stop,” he says, shakily. “He’s still here in the room, he won’t stop looking at me.”

“Fuck. It’s gonna be okay, Sammy. I’m gonna help you through this.”

Dean quickly gets up and gets a spare rag, brings it over and sits on the bed next to Sam.

“We gotta stop the bleeding, don’t want you to lose too much blood,” he says, voice low.

The switchblade is resting on the bedside table, still shiny with blood. Dean looks at it but doesn’t make any comment, just looks at Sam with a tight expression and presses the rag into his palm.

It’s sort of satisfying to watch how quickly it soaks up the blood. Pure white ruined into deep scarlet. Sam tries to focus on this, Dean’s steady hands resting gently over his, the burning sensation from the cut itself, but it still isn’t enough.

“You’ll never be able to get rid of me,” Lucifer taunts with a grin. Somehow, he’s ended up right behind Sam, looming over like a dark shadow.

Sam’s head is pounding. Every bone in his body feels heavy with exhaustion.

“Dean, please. You have to help me,” he begs, desperately. He looks Dean right in the eyes, trying to silently urge him on. 

Dean starts to reply, but his words are drowned out when all of a sudden, Lucifer places his hand on Sam’s shoulder.

Agonizing pain shoots through his spine, freezing him in place. He feels like he’s drowning in a pit of black tar. He can’t see or hear anything, breathing feels like choking.

Suddenly, he’s not in the motel room anymore. Dean isn’t with him. He’s alone, in hell. Nobody coming to save him, nothing except torture and suffering. 

Sam cries. His tears roll down his cheeks, fall onto his chest in thick, red drops. He’s weeping blood.

He wishes more than anything that he could just die, just fade into nothingness. But he knows this is the only thing that’s waiting for him after death. He’s never going to heaven, not even purgatory. He’s destined to be here, in this place. He deserves it.

Then: a stinging sensation in his palm. A faint voice off in the distance.

“Sammy? Sammy, can you hear me? It’s me. You need to snap out of it. I won’t let you leave me like this.”

Dean’s voice washes over him, and Sam closes his eyes. He tries to block out everything else but the pain in his hand, letting it anchor him back to reality. He thinks about what Dean told him, last time things were this bad.

_“Believe in that! Believe me, okay? You gotta believe me. You gotta make it stone number one and build on it. You understand?”_

Sam gasps for breath and his eyes fly back open. He’s in the motel, sitting on the bed. Dean’s there, eyes wide, thumb pressed into Sam’s freshly-opened wound.

“Don’t stop,” Sam breathes out heavily. “The pain. It’s the only thing that helps.”

“Anything you need, Sammy. I’m here. Just keep focusing on me. Not gonna let that bastard get to you.” Dean says, trying to keep his voice even. He presses his finger into Sam’s wound harder, blood trickling out underneath it.

Sam lurches forwards, grasping Dean’s arm with his free hand and pulling them closer together. He buries his face in Dean’s chest, and Dean puts his other arm around him, stroking his back. He wraps his body around Sam’s, as if he’s a human shield.

“Please, Dean. Harder,” Sam strains out, his voice muffled.

“You’re doing so good, just hang in there. I got you.” Dean soothes. He presses even harder into Sam’s palm, practically finger-fucking the wound.

It still hurts, of course. But the pain feels _good_ , a sharpness to it that’s different from the dull, bone-deep aches he’s gotten used to.

And Dean’s there, his body over Sam’s like a weighted blanket. Keeping him safe, protecting him like he always has. The places where they’re making skin-to-skin contact soothes him, reminding him that they are both here, in flesh and blood.

“I— I need to feel you. Make sure you’re real,” Sam begs. He’s barely got a grip on reality, but he knows that right now, he needs this. More than anything. He’s hard in his jeans, but he just ignores it.

His grip on Dean’s arm tightens. He pulls back to look at him, tries to slide his hand up past the cuffs of Dean’s shirt in an attempt to show him what he’s trying to say.

Dean looks back. He nods and slowly removes his hands from Sam. His fingertips are stained with blood. He unbuttons his shirt, hands shaking just a little bit, and tosses it aside before plastering himself back against Sam.

Sam grabs onto him for dear life, rakes his fingernails down his back. Feels the hot skin underneath him. 

“I’m real,” Dean says, urgently. “You’re real. All of this is real. Lucifer’s not gonna get you, not on my watch.”

He grabs Sam’s bloody hand again. The cut is still fresh, the edges of the wound are swollen from being prodded at, still slowly seeping out blood.

Dean reaches over and takes the switchblade off of the table.

“Sammy. Look at me.”

He presses the blade into his own palm. Drops of blood well up underneath the sharp point. Dean pushes in deeper, never one to do things in half-measures. 

He holds his hand up next to Sam’s, matching wounds side by side. Open cuts, steady-blood drip, and all.

“My blood, your blood. It’s the same. It’s proof that we’re alive— that we’re here, right now, in this room.”

Sam stares at Dean’s hand. Red with both of their blood smeared all over it. The ringing in his ears stops. He lets out a breath, lets his shoulders relax.

He cups Dean’s hand in his. Before he can think about it too hard, he brings it up to his face slowly, giving Dean a chance to take his hand back if he wants to.

Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch.

Sam licks a wet stripe up his palm along the seam of the wound. Dean’s breath hitches. Sam makes it to his fingertips and sucks them into his mouth, tasting his own blood on his tongue.

His mouth is slick, tastes like iron and the salt of Dean’s skin. 

“This real enough for you, Sammy?” Dean asks, breath hitched.

“Yeah, yeah it is.” Sam replies.

He gives Dean a red-stained smile. There’s definitely blood on his teeth.

He surges up and kisses Dean with his bloodied mouth. Dean responds immediately, grabbing onto Sam and returning the kiss with equal force.

Something like this would never happen in hell.

Sam’s aware, objectively, that what they’re doing probably isn’t too high on anyone’s morality list. For that matter, it’s not even legal in most of the United States. 

(Most, not all. Sam’s done his research.)

But he’ll be damned if this doesn’t feel like the holiest thing he’s ever done.

Sam puts his palms on Dean’s bare chest, smearing it with his bloody handprints. It’s proof that he’s been here, that he’s touched Dean like this.

Dean fumbles to undo Sam’s jeans and reaches inside the waistband of his boxers to pull out his cock.

“Yours, too,” Sam groans out as Dean touches him.

Dean pulls his own pants down roughly, takes his dick and presses it up against Sam’s. He wraps his hand around the both of them, slicking their cocks up with blood. Sam wonders if it hurts for Dean to be putting so much friction on his cut hand. Probably.

If anyone walked in on them right now, they’d be horrified. Would wonder if someone was murdered and now the two of them are getting off on their kill.

When Sam thinks about it, maybe this is them getting off on _all_ their kills, in a way. Everyone they’ve had to slaughter, all the blood and guts they’ve spilled, that’s piled up year after year, strewn behind them since they were kids like the world’s most fucked up trail of breadcrumbs.

For the first time in months, he’s not worried about Lucifer at all. He’s not alone in this fight, not just stuck in his head, subject to endless torment and misery. He exists out here too, and Dean’s always done everything in his power to make sure of that.

The only way the Winchester brothers are going to die is if they die together.

Sam comes all over both of their jeans, Dean working him through his orgasm. Sam’s body shakes and shakes but Dean doesn’t let him go.

Red blood, white come, blue jeans— how all-American of them.

“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean groans, looking at him in awe.

Sam pulls his own jeans down further, his cock hanging damp and sticky between his legs.

“Yeah, fuck my thighs, Dean,” he says, voice wrecked.

Dean wipes up some of Sam’s come that had landed on his stomach, smears it on his cock and fucks into his hand a few times before positioning himself in between Sam.

Sam squeezes his legs tight, trying to make it good for Dean. He grabs Dean’s shoulders and pulls him down to kiss him as he fucks into the space that Sam’s made for him.

“You look so pretty like this,” Dean says, hips jerking hard and fast. He’s got no rhythm to his movements, just aimlessly and desperately shoving his cock back in the tight heat over and over again.

The sheets are soaked with blood and sweat and come and God knows what else and Sam just lies on the bed and takes it. When Dean’s cock brushes up against his still-sensitive one, he shivers, pushes his thighs together even more.

“Come on my face,” Sam begs brokenly. He’s long past being embarrassed at this point. Dean just groans in response.

“You’re gonna fucking kill me,” he breathes out.

“If I do, I’ll just find a way to bring you right back,” Sam responds, with more sincerity than he meant to have.

Dean takes his dick out from where it’s nestled in between Sam and moves up to straddle his torso. He’s got one hand on his cock and the other he tangles in Sam’s hair, and Sam just leans into the touch.

“Always wanted to pull your hair like this. It’s so fucking long, just wanted to get my hands on it and mess it all up,” Dean says, his other hand working furiously at his cock. 

This close to his face, Sam can smell the sharp iron from the blood dripping off Dean’s cock. Even demon blood’s got nothing on this.

“Yeah, Sammy. Fuck. So fucking good,” Dean groans. He spills over and Sam opens his mouth, tongue outstretched. 

Come splashes haphazardly all over his face. It’s across his cheekbones, in his eyelashes, in his mouth. Sam loves this. The absolute mess of it all. Their entire life’s been a mess, no reason that their sex life should be any different.

Dean cups Sam’s cheek, brushes his thumb across it to smear his come deeper into Sam’s skin.

Later, Dean will help Sam up, clean the dried blood and come off him, stitch up his wound. Sam will stitch up Dean’s wound, too. Just as they’ve always done for each other.

But for now, Sam just leans into Dean and closes his eyes. His head is quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!!! <3
> 
> Title is from Song of Songs 4:3 in the King James Bible:  
> "Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks."
> 
> I really wanted to name this fic after the song "Fuck the Pain Away" by Peaches but I ultimately decided to give it a bit more of a serious title haha.


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